Monthly Archives: April 2014

Here’s a collage that I created of typical representations of women in the media generally. In most thriller films there is a victim and they predominantly tend to be a female character. The media presents females to be defenseless and as the weaker gender.

The mentally disturbed female character in our thriller opening was stereo-typically presented as powerless. This was presented through her writing ‘help!’ on the dressing table mirror. We used a female character to play the role of the victim as society represents women as weaker gender and therefore not as much sympathy would be given towards the victim if we chose to have a male victim.

Females are also presented to have a passion for make-up even at a young age. We presented this through the female character who only remembers back to her younger days which only consists of her putting makeup on herself. Furthermore, presenting the idea that all that females think about is makeup and the idea that the character is weak

The victims body language in this shot presents how innocent and defenseless she is. In typical thriller films we are presented with the idea that women are defenseless and tend to lose when it comes to trying to defend themselves from a kidnapper or a killer. This became evident in a number of thriller films such as Psycho, Taken, Scream and many more.

Her body language contrasts from she is putting on makeup to after she is done. She looks confident as she is applying her makeup and comes across as intimidating and scary. This switches at the end as her body language changes to frightened. This develops the idea of females always being innocent and weak as the audience were made to feel frightened of this mentally unstable woman.

We tried to do something a little different to your average horror thriller. Rather than using the typical conventions of a horror thriller by frightening them to a point where they no longer can bare to look at the screen, our group decided to do something slightly different by having that element of rising fear being presented yet at the same time making the audience question what is going. Furthermore, our group challenged existing thriller openings by adding a psychological element onto the horror element of the thriller opening. We combined the two types of thriller together by having a psychological feel to it due to mentally disturbed women having flashbacks of her past.

We used a lot of point of view shots which added to the thrill of the opening as we challenged the audience’s emotions through our opening by creating a sense of fear but at the same time building a sense of sympathy for the women which broke the typical conventions in order for the audience to be curious as to what they should be feeling and more importantly what is going to happen next?

We used typical conventions specifically from the thriller opening Se7en as I really liked the idea of objects being shown significance to after Hitchcock speaking about objects being the key to building suspense. The thriller opening Se7en presented random objects throughout which did exactly that. We started off the thriller opening with a ballerina musical box spinning as the camera shot became closer and closer which created suspense as there was no one else in the shot and the musical box was spinning showing signifcance to it which built suspense levels.

Again our group assembled with the equipment after school to the same music room. It was difficult to assure that all the props were in the exact same place as it was yesterday to keep up the continuity editing. This took roughly 10 minutes whilst I went to Miss Warner’s office to ask her whether she was ready for us to film her. She told us she will be there in couple of minutes so myself and the group assured that all the equipment was in the correct place ready to film as soon as she approached. As Miss Warner came into the music room we explained to her what she is required to do. She sat down as I was filming her from behind to capture an over the shoulder shot which was difficult to do without capturing the mirror in the back. Once I was able to do this, with the help of the group who helped move the camera at an angle, it all was coming together as the shot by shot list was effectively guiding what steps to do next. Miss Warner very helpfully was giving new ideas and what she could do in order to make the thriller even better than it was and our group were open to listening to it. After we completely finished filming. We briefly discussed what there is yet outstanding to be filmed which was the flashback scene to when she is being kidnapped. The group decided that not many people would be required for this scene but one camera person and the teenage actor and Nabila who was also starring in it.

Overall, there were not any problems that occurred during the filming scene and it flowed well due to Miss Warner being there to guide and give tips to us when in confusion.

After being told what times it would be appropriate for our group to film. Myself and the group headed down to the music room after school with the HD camera and the tripod alongside the props such as the mirror, makeup, musical ballerina box and table cloth. Amrit set up the table which would be filmed whilst the rest fixed the camera and the light so that the dark, scary lighting was perfect. We decided that we would film the teenage girl dressing up in front of the mirror first. Molly sat down whilst the cinematographer- Amrit set up the shot starting from over the shoulder shot to the reaction shot from the mirror. The shots and filming went well and according to the shot by shot list. Although there were some difficulties with getting the perfect lighting from time to time as it either turned too dark that it was difficult to see or it was too light that the ‘scary location’ element was being prevented.

One problem that occurred on the first day was the camera itself! The group were just struggling to get a grip as to how to use it and it took some time to get use to it.